'Cats 2019 season: 'Tough early … brutal at the end'

Darrell Richardson Oak Ridger publisher

Wednesday

Aug 28, 2019 at 5:39 PM

Gaddis: "We'll be playoff-tested by the time playoffs roll around"

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — “This year’s schedule is, honestly, the toughest schedule that I can recall Oak Ridge having since 1988 — and that happened to be the first year I was here,” Oak Ridge High School’s head football coach Joe Gaddis recently shared with the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge. “That schedule, for those of you who follow football here at the high school level, was unbelievably challenging.

“This year’s schedule is THE toughest schedule we’ve had since I’ve been back,” he added. “And as I look over the schedules from the time in between when I left and when I came back … seriously … this is a tough, tough schedule.”

Gaddis was head coach at Oak Ridge for 11 seasons from 1988 to 1998 and then returned to The Secret City seven seasons ago in 2013.

“If we look at our region first,” Gaddis said, “Powell is going to be GREAT — they have a great football team. They may have been as good a team as we played last year (and) they’re going to be loaded (this year). So that’s a game to mark down late in the season.

Game 9 for us and that’s AT Powell High School.” (The Wildcats at the Panthers is scheduled to be televised Thursday, Oct. 24, 2019, on Knoxville’s MyVLT2 TV.)

“West High School is absolutely going to be great,” coach Gaddis stated. “We beat ’em last year. Again … some … how.

“Both those teams were ahead of us comfortably at the half, and we came back and won both. I’m sure both of their coaches are kicking themselves as to how they some how lost those games because they had us on the ropes.”

The Knoxville West Rebels visit Blankenship Field on Sept. 20 for the host Wildcats’ regular-season Game 5. Coach Gaddis said West has two defenders who have already committed to Arkansas, and he added that the Rebels’ head coach was being interviewed by one of the Knoxville television stations and was talking about how “explosive” West’s offensive side is expected to be this fall.

“If true,” Gaddis said, Knoxville West is “going to be a scary football team.”

Fulton is Fulton, the Wildcats’ coach said. … “This new region that we’re in, we won it two years ago and Fulton won it last year.”

Oak Ridge’s Game 10 at North Knoxville this season, “Fulton’s going to be loaded again with a lot of speed, a lot of size,” coach Gaddis said. “Their numbers are down so depth is an issue but their players are REALLY good.”

Game 3 @ Campbell County

“Now when I came here in 1988, again longtime Oak Ridge fans will remember this,” Gaddis said, Campbell County wasn’t as competitive as it is now. But … “something happened in the last eight to 10 years — well I know what happened, they got two coaches in there that are really, really good — twin brothers … one’s the head coach and one’s the defensive coordinator … they turned that program completely around so Campbell County now is a competitive game and I’m sure they will be competitive again this year.”

Game 7 Karns @ Oak Ridge

“When they come off the bus, (the Beavers) look as good as anybody we’ll play,” coach Gaddis said. “They’ve got big, strong, solid-looking linemen and they’ve got great athletes.”

Game 6 Clinton @ Oak Ridge

“I hear every year, ‘This is the year of the Dragon,’” Oak Ridge head coach Joe Gaddis said. “And I’ve heard it already this year.

“The year of the Dragon over there means one thing and one thing only … that they’re going to beat Oak Ridge. If you told Clinton they could be 9-1 and win the regional championship or they could be 1-9 and beat Oak Ridge, they’ll take the Oak Ridge win every year.

“They have a new coach from a couple of years ago, and they’ll be improved over last year. And when you have the Clinton vs. Oak Ridge game, it’s going to be a battle — hopefully, another battle that we can win.”

Non-regional matchups

“Our non-region schedule is also, I think, what makes our schedule that much tougher because every team we play is a 6A team and we’re 5A,” Gaddis said. “We open up with Hardin Valley … they’re a good, solid football team; they’re always physical up front; and they have a new coach who’s been there but he’s hired a new offensive coordinator, a new defensive coordinator and you don’t know exactly what they’re going to do.

“Those of you who like to watch great football players, (Hardin Valley has) a great, great defensive end; I hate saying that because I hate facing the guy again, but he’s tremendous. He’ll be an All-State guy, and he’ll go on to play college football.”

Traditionally, Gaddis pointed out, Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett is one of the winningest programs in the state of Tennessee. “They have a new coach as of a year ago,” he said. “And early in the year, they always seem to be tough.

“And the thing that bothers us about (Dobyns-Bennett) is they’re so big, strong and physical — and Oak Ridge is not a BIG football team. It’s rare that we have many more than one or two what I would call “big guys,” so thank goodness we’re usually a little fast because we’re small as a team. We’ll be the smallest team on the field pretty much every Friday night.”

As Gaddis said earlier about Fulton, “Farragut,” he said, “is Farragut. … They are going to be really good again. A huge school enrollment-wise, great athletes and a great tradition.”

The last couple of years, according to Oak Ridge’s head football coach, “Mt. Juliet has been the best defensive team in the state of Tennessee. They’re big, they’re powerful, they’re physical. They played Oakland (of Murfreesboro) really close” in last season’s 7-14 state quarterfinals’ loss to the visiting Patriots “— and Oakland was by far and away the best 6A team in the state. They had seven shutouts in their first 10 games two years ago, and they had a ton of shutouts last year,” Gaddis said.

“We’ll be going to Mt. Juliet in October.”

Gaddis noted the Oak Ridge Wildcats’ 2019 season “concludes with an absolutely brutal last three games. … We conclude the season with Mt. Juliet, Powell and Fulton. I always look for a silver lining, and that is certainly going to get us in a playoff mode because those three teams will be playoff-caliber teams for certain.

“So those of you who like to see us face really stiff opposition, we’re doing that this year for sure. It’s tough early and it’s brutal at the end. And, hopefully, we’ll be playoff-tested by the time the playoffs roll around (in November).”

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